[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 58 (Tuesday, April 21, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4498-S4500]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        FLOODING IN NORTH DAKOTA

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I have come to the floor to talk for a 
moment about the unprecedented flooding that has occurred in the State 
of North Dakota in recent weeks. My colleague, Senator Conrad, 
discussed it some yesterday, and I want to discuss it as well.
  We have had flood disaster assistance now approved for 38 of North 
Dakota's 53 counties, and it has been the most unprecedented, 
unbelievable flooding we have ever seen in the State of North Dakota. 
This chart I have in the Chamber shows, in red, the counties that have 
been declared disaster areas as a result of flooding. You can see it 
covers nearly three-fourths of the State of North Dakota. And we have 
had more snow, more moisture, more difficulty, more blizzards, and so 
on, and the rivers across our State have exceeded their banks and 
threatened very dramatic flooding, which I am going to talk about some 
today. But before I talk about the water, I want to talk about the 
people of North Dakota.
  The unprecedented flooding that has driven people from their homes 
and caused so much damage and so much difficulty for so long has caused 
people in North Dakota to come together to do the most unusual things I 
have ever seen.
  At midnight one night, I peered down the stairs of what is called the 
FARGODOME to see this large expanse. Inside this large dome building, 
at near midnight, I peered down on that floor, and there were thousands 
and thousands of people on the floor of that dome filling sandbags. 
They filled 3\1/2\ million sandbags in about 5\1/2\ days--3\1/2\ 
million sandbags in 5\1/2\ days. And they did not hire anybody to do 
that; they just put out a notice on the radio to say: We need people, 
and people showed up. The most unbelievable thing in Fargo, ND, was to 
watch what they did with just the people power that showed up. No one 
thought a group of people could do that, but they did--3\1/2\ million 
sandbags.

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  The Anne Carlsen School over in Jamestown, ND--on the James River 
that began flooding--the Anne Carlsen School previously, many years 
ago, was called the Crippled Children's School. Children who are in 
that school need a great deal of care. There needed to be an evacuation 
of the Anne Carlsen School. Eighty athletes from the college and the 
high school showed up, and in 4 hours, not just the children but the 
special beds and special equipment and all the things that are 
necessary to help take care of those children was moved to higher 
ground and moved to safer quarters.
  It is unbelievable that people all over our State just showed up. 
When all of these volunteers were out there walking the dikes--and 
particularly the National Guard that walked all of those dikes on the 
Red River especially, and now in Valley City, which has very high 
levels at the moment and is in a very difficult circumstance--we had 
all of those people involved 24 hours a day.
  As is very typical in a State such as mine, hundreds and hundreds of 
people decided that one way they could participate is to prepare hot 
dishes and casseroles and meals. I was in meetings where people would 
show up with big platters of homemade sandwiches. I know volunteers who 
worked for hour after hour on end would find that people would show up 
with casseroles and hot dishes, as they call them in our part of the 
country. One of the ways you fight floods as well is to feed those who 
are hungry out there in the dike lines and out there who are 
sandbagging.
  Let me show a couple of the sites from the Red River Valley. This is 
a photograph of a National Guard helicopter. I cannot say enough about 
the National Guard and how critically important they have been to this 
flood fight.
  But, as you can see from this picture, this area is as flat as a 
table top. Someone once described the Red River and the Red River 
Valley as a table top with a scratch in it, the scratch being the Red 
River. You can see there is not a hill in sight. This is totally, 
completely flat. You see water simply spreads everywhere. Here is a 
farmstead completely surrounded by water. That is in the Red River 
Valley of North Dakota.
  In Pembina, ND--and by the way, this Red River runs north and runs 
out of North Dakota at Pembina into Lake Winnipeg--you will see the 
city of Pembina is surrounded by water. As shown in this picture, this 
is an interstate highway surrounded by water. The folks in Pembina, 
almost every year, have to fight these floodwaters, and this year was 
no different.
  As reported in the Valley City Times Record, a substantial portion of 
Valley City had to be evacuated. In the middle of this unbelievable 
fight in Valley City--and by the way, that is on the Sheyenne River--
the fight to the finish line here was with so many volunteers to build 
dikes and to try to do what is necessary to save the city of Valley 
City. I walked into the Valley City Winter Show facility and saw once 
again an unbelievable sandbagging operation. Just blowing the city 
whistle and putting out a notice over the radio meant that people 
flocked to the area where they were needed to fill sandbags. In Valley 
City, even as I speak, they are still fighting those floodwaters. As 
shown in this picture, this is part of the diking around Valley City, 
as you can see. This happens to be the Sheyenne River. I mentioned the 
Red River Valley, which is the Red River. The Red River runs north, one 
of the only rivers in America that run north. The headwaters are in the 
southern part of North Dakota and South Dakota, so the headwaters are 
south and the river runs north. But this is the Sheyenne River, which 
then eventually runs into the Red River as well. That happens to be the 
Valley City issue.
  This is a picture of Fargo, ND. This photograph is all water. 
Obviously, this house is flooded. But we had the Coast Guard there. We 
had propeller boats evacuating people. It is an unbelievable sight.
  This is a copy of the Bismarck Tribune: ``Forces of Nature.'' It 
shows a number of head of cattle simply gathered here on the only piece 
of dry ground, stranded by all of the water.
  Of course, Linton, ND, a little community, a smaller community south 
of Bismarck, was hit with a significant flood.
  Beulah and Hazen were hit with a significant flood, and Bismarck, ND, 
with ice jams, has a threat to a substantial portion of that city of a 
wall of 3 or 3\1/2\ feet of water that would inundate the southern part 
of that city if the ice jams broke.
  All of these communities were facing those kinds of challenges.
  Ransom County, ND. This is dead cattle shown in this picture. We do 
not know the count yet of how many dead head of livestock we will have, 
but it will be plenty, and our ranchers will have suffered a 
substantial amount. In addition to the dead livestock that is going to 
happen, we will have, undoubtedly, more than 3 million acres of ground 
that cannot be planted this year because of water--another difficulty 
as a result of this flood to the agriculture community.
  As shown in this picture, this is one block from Main Street in 
Beulah, ND. I will be in Beulah on Saturday of this week. Here is the 
threat that Beulah faced, a city in the center of our State, and all of 
these communities: Valley City, Lisbon, La Moure, Fort Ransom, Mott, 
Beulah, Linton, Bismarck--and the list goes on--Pembina. All of these 
cities faced very substantial flooding this year.
  Here, shown in this picture, is a feed lot west of Mandan, ND, with a 
couple dogs and a bucket. All you can see is water because that is all 
there was because of complete total flooding.
  This is a photograph of a flooded yard and outbuilding in Fargo, ND, 
with a dog looking over the dikes.
  Let me say the Corps of Engineers has done a masterful job. Let me 
also say the mayor and the vice mayor and the folks in Fargo and so 
many other communities have done an extraordinary job. The mayor of 
Valley City even today is continuing to fight this fight. If you go 
into a fight, a flood fight, you want the Corps of Engineers on your 
side because they have sent hundreds of people into our State to try to 
fight these floods.
  This is a photograph of sandbagging, in this case by National 
Guardsmen, in Bismarck, ND.
  This is a photograph of the dropping of 2,000-pound sandbags in areas 
of the dike that were about to breach, dropping from a helicopter 
2,000-pound sandbags into a crevice to see if they could stop a breach.
  These are just a few of the challenges we have faced in so many 
different communities: Jamestown, La Moure, Linton, Beulah/Hazen, Mott, 
Fort Ransom--so many other communities.
  I want to say that I think almost everyone in North Dakota has been 
overwhelmed by what the notion of being a good neighbor really means. 
It means showing up, just showing up when you are needed--not because 
somebody asked you to but because you just felt you should because it 
was part of the destiny and the future of your community to be involved 
in fighting floodwaters.
  This is a natural disaster, and it is going to take some long while 
for our State to recover. But our State is a community of interests 
that has made me enormously proud. The folks who settled the northern 
Great Plains are pretty special people. My ancestors showed up there 
from Europe a long, long time ago and pitched a tent on the prairies 
and raised a family and then built a house and started a farm. That is 
the way they started populating the prairies of the northern Great 
Plains.
  In North Dakota, they still look after each other when times are 
tough. And this is about as tough a time as I have ever seen in my 
lifetime in the State of North Dakota with respect to natural 
disasters. We know that 12 years ago, in 1997, the city of Grand Forks 
faced a flood and the dike breached and the city of 50,000 people was 
evacuated. It was the largest evacuation of a major city at that time 
since the Civil War. We well understand a flood fight, well understand 
the consequences of natural disasters and flooding, and I am proud to 
say Grand Forks has come roaring back as a city.
  I am also proud to say the cities of Fargo and Moorhead and Wahpeton 
and Breckenridge and others have fought back these floodwaters, and we 
did not have a breach in the dike, so that a major portion of the 
cities were protected. But other areas were not. The mayor of Oxbow, 
ND, for example--I recall standing on a dike with him, and

[[Page S4500]]

his eyes were full of tears as he recalled and recounted the fight they 
fought and lost in some areas because they simply could not hold back 
the waters.
  There are so many stories and so much misery as a result of a natural 
disaster, but I think there is also a second side to it, and that is a 
very inspirational side of what people can do for each other and with 
each other to try to deal with these difficult times. The one thing 
about life is, success is pretty easy to handle. The question is, How 
do you handle things when times get a little tough?
  I wanted to say I am so proud of the people of my State, the State I 
am privileged to represent. We have a lot now to do with the Corps of 
Engineers, with future water projects, and the kinds of protections 
that are needed to be improved for future flood protection. That will 
come at a different moment in the weeks and months ahead, but for now I 
simply wanted to describe to my colleagues some of the circumstances we 
faced in our State and especially the stories about what people did 
together to try to make a big difference, fighting back the waters of 
these many rivers that exceeded their banks and caused such havoc in 
many of our communities.

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